New TLDs

When Did CIRA Become the Commercial Internet Registration Authority?

Nearly ten years ago, the Government of Canada wrote a letter to the chair of the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) that set out the framework for the management of the dot-ca domain. The government articulated a vision of the dot-ca domain as a “key public resource” and called on CIRA to act in an open and transparent manner. CIRA has long sought to live up to those standards, but in recent months the organization has shown an unmistakable shift toward prioritizing commercial gain over the public interest along with a troubling move toward secret decision making... more

ICANN Asked to Remake the Internet in Joseph Smith’s Image?

If there's one thing that scares the bejabbers out of me, it's when organized religion -- either directly or via proxies -- attempts to nose its way into technology policy issues. It appears that such a scenario is unfolding currently, with a concerted new effort to fundamentally remake the Internet in a manner befitting the sensibilities of top-down religious hierarchies. An Internet Pope? The Spanish Inquisition? Not exactly -- that's the incorrect religion for this particular case. more

WIPO Cybersquatting Report Ignores Real UDRP Trends

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) asserted on Monday that new gTLDs from ICANN would unleash a global crime wave. This dire warning was bolstered by an astonishing statistic: a whopping eight per cent (8%) increase in UDRP complaints from 2007 to 2008! But WIPO's press release tells only a very little of the truth. Astonishingly, the UDRP system actually works pretty well... more

The DNSSEC Industry Coalition Meets to “Make It So”

The DNSSEC Industry Coalition conducted its first face to face meeting on Friday, March 13, 2009 at Google's Washington, DC office. Google's fun filled meeting room was packed with organizations that share a keen interest in DNS Security through the implementation of DNSSEC. more

WIPO’s Misleading Release

The World Intellectual Property Organization put out a release yesterday trumpeting an eight percent increase in domain name disputes handled by WIPO. In 2008 there were 2329 complaints filed with WIPO, the most ever. WIPO uses the increase to raise questions about the possible increase in the number of available generic top-level domains... more

ICANN to IP Experts: Come Back With a Solution for Internet Trademark Protection

Trademark issues are emerging with the upcoming introduction of new generic top-level domains on the internet, and the board members of the body introducing the names has passed the ball back to intellectual property experts to find answers. The Intellectual Property Constituency of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has been asked to work out a viable solution "no later than 24 May 2009." Trademark issues have been defined as one of four overarching issues still to be solved before ICANN can finalise the application procedure for the next hundreds or thousands of top-level domains from .eco to .music. more

Mexico City Hosts an Eventful ICANN Meeting

The Mexico City ICANN Conference was more eventful than some of us had anticipated. Among the highlights was Paul Twomey's announcement that he is stepping down as President and CEO of ICANN effective on June 30... Before the Conference, ICANN had released the second draft of its Guidebook for new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs). It was not greeted with universal acclaim... more

Deeply, Deeply Flawed Economic Report and Analysis of New gTLDs Posted by ICANN

The reports and analysis by Dr. Dennis Carlton are deeply, deeply flawed. I will prepare a long rebuttal to it in the coming weeks, but wanted to go on the record early as to its weaknesses. The analysis appears to be based on a very limited review of the market for domain names, and utilizes little actual data. It fails to even consider how nuanced the market for domain names has become, and how registry operators can exploit those nuances, including tiered-pricing... more

European Commission Can Register ‘galileo.eu’, Even if It Deprives Owner of Identical Trademark

When it drafted the .eu regulation EC 874/2004, the Commission reserved for itself a (long) list of domain names. One of them was galileo.eu. For obvious reasons, Galileo Lebensmittel GmbH & Co. KG claimed before the Courf of First Instance that the Commission's decision to reserve galileo.eu should be annulled... more

The DNSSEC Groundswell

It's been 15 long years since the standard for DNSSEC was developed and sadly adoption has been painfully low until recently, thanks to Dan Kaminsky, the infamous Internet Researcher who indentified that gaping hole in the DNS. The discovery of the fundamental flaw in DNS sparked industry wide attention! Every day, we move a little closer to widespread DNSSEC adoption, so I thought I'd take a moment and highlight some of the most notable milestones... more